Climate Change: From doom to boom?

Global warming has continued to be of concern to all. But while some countries are curtailing the threat, the Lagos State government is exploring ways of transforming the menace to the environment to financial boom, writes Assistant Editor MUYIWA LUCAS.

Driving into Ikorodu Road from either the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway or the Kudirat Abiola Way, Oregun, can be quite discomfiting on some days. The stench from the dumpsite at Ojota is enough to upset the respiratory system.

Residents on this corridor, which is also gradually turning into a commercial area, have for long had to cope with the offensive odour from the site. Notwithstanding, most traders in the area consider it good for business.

But in another part of the town, Ogba, it was a different scenario. Thirteen pupils of Ogba Junior Grammar School in Lagos were hospitalised recently after allegedly inhaling a poisonous chemical, which engulfed their school premises, bringing the need for man to protect his environment to the fore.

Senate Committee Chairman on Environment and Ecology Dr Bukola Saraki said climate change is becoming more difficult to ignore, even by the most-hardened skeptics. He noted that desertification is taking a toll on the north, threatening to deplete the major source of income for people living in that area, which is basically agriculture, and by extension putting food security at high risk.

Saraki observed that the changing weather patterns and continued lack of adequate rainfall has reduced the quantum of arable land for food production in the north, which is already the source of conflict between the Fulani herdsmen in the Middle Belt of the country, where the natural savannah grasslands are shrinking at such a rate that it has resulted in fierce competition for water and land for farming.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), between 1963 and 2010, Lake Chad shrank by as much as 95 per cent of its size, thereby placing the economic livelihoods of the over 30 million people living in the four border countries of the Lake and the Sahara Desert – Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria – on the precipe. Now, with insecurity, coupled with socio-economic instability, regions which have insufficient funds to fight the impact of climate change are the hardest hit.

Obviously realising the huge funding requirement to tackle the scourge, Saraki noted that funding for legislation change by global organisations is very important for a start. At a recent GLOBE Climate Legislation Summit, a key question brought to the fore, was on how global institutions can financially aid governments to develop and pass climate change laws.

“With tight government budgets, raising funds internally is a difficult task. Many believe that climate change is a long-term problem and can be dealt with ‘later’, but resources need to be found and need to be found now. So, GLOBE Nigeria welcomes support from organisations such as the World Bank and the UNEP,” Saraki said.

But the Lagos State government seems to have taken the lead in this direction. The state, not wanting to be bogged by the scarcity of funds to tackle the climatic change, is looking inwards to see how the needed revenue can be generated from the environment itself. Therefore, as the impact of climate change persists on one hand, the positive side, on the other hand, is the throwing up numerous opportunities for investors, courtesy of a range of emerging profit-spinning prospects inherent in it.

The opportunities are what participants at the Sixth Lagos Climate Change Summit holding from today till Thursday at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Victoria Island, will attempt to explore. The state government, at this year’s edition of the annual Climate Change Summit, with the theme: “Exploring business opportunities in climate change: Lagos State in focus” hopes to sensitise the public on the investment opportunities in the sector, which is valued at over N170 billion, and assist them to partake of the opportunities.

While the state does not want to be seen as celebrating or advocating increasing emissions, the carbon market, estimated to be a multi-billion dollar business, has since tickled with the fancy of investment analysts, who argue that responding to opportunities might mean helping others to reduce their own vulnerability to extreme weather or other impacts of a changing climate.

Lagos State Commissioner for the Environment Tunji Bello explained the rationale for the business opportunities in climate change, which has largely remained untapped. He said there was likely to be an increasing demand for products and services designed to function in the new climate, citing the products that are heat resistant, robust, waterproof, moisture retaining or made from permeable material, as front runners in the direction given the country’s climatic conditions.

“Also, there are likely to be market opportunities for new or existing products or services that help others deal with the climate risk. For example by providing products or services that monitor or measure weather or impacts,” Bello said.

The commissioner revealed that the state’s Waste Management Authority (LAWMA) at its Olushosun Landfill Site at Oregun is converting waste to wealth by curbing carbon emission and producing gas from waste while national and state officials are also involved in the promotion of the Save80 Fuel Efficient Wood Stove, which reduces by 80 per cent the wood needed for cooking, thereby keeping the carbon sink and slowing the rate of desertification.

Bello noted that the initiative is part of the state being proactive to developments locally and globally. He revealed that the nation is operating several Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects approved by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) with one of such being the Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) Composting Project in Ikorodu operated by EarthCare Nigeria Limited.

Submissions from previous summits have proved to be very helpful for the state, producing many recommendations which, on implementation, have helped to advance the state’s adaptation and mitigation capabilities to the impact of climate change. For instance, from one of the summits, the government some years ago, adopted July 14 yearly as its Tree Planting Day. It came under a programme aimed at planting millions of trees to beautify Lagos and also provide a carbon sink; over six million trees have so far have been planted under this scheme.

Similarly, the government has established the Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency (LASPARK) to beautify and regenerate the Lagos environment from the effect of climate change, in the light of the intensity of global warming that is threatening the entire ecosystem. This effort, it is believed, has placed the state among the notable green cities in the world today.

The state’s desire to be proactive was captured by Governor Babatunde Fashola, who is committed to tackling the global environmental scourge and the unsavoury impact of the climate change phenomenon in Lagos in particular, at the inaugural summit in 2009, when he said: “Gone are the days when we could succinctly draw a line between the rainy season and dry season; gone are the days when harvest was predictable and bountiful; gone are the days when select species of certain fish were readily available on the menu table.”

He has since been proven right with events that followed much later. For instance, on July 10, 2011, the heavens poured rain for 16 hours non-stop. Lagos experienced a torrential rainfall that was unprecedented in the history of the state.

Again, on February 13, 2012, an unprecedented storm with wind speed of between 75 and 100 kilometres hit the city, damaging many homes and several properties. The incident occurred in the middle of February, a month not usually associated with such an extreme weather condition.

Saraki believes that the country is not folding its hands hoping that the world will come to its aid.

“GLOBE Nigeria and the Environment Committee I head in the Nigerian Senate are working to put laws in place that will make climate change a high priority for the government and future governments to come,” the former Kwara State governor said, adding that the Bill for an Act for the Establishment of a Climate Change Commission is in its second reading in the Senate.

He is confident that when the Bill is passed, the Commission would serve as a place for working out targets towards achieving a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in Nigeria, and by extension, facilitate the early development of programmes that will enable Nigeria achieve a sustainable future.